My first practice of the day was physically easier to do and my mental activity was more contained and focused on the practice, say than last week. My breath is now longer than each dynamic āsana and breathing is longer in the deeper static āsana. I felt more grounded in standing postures, I feel the service of breath in lying postures, I felt lighter internally through inversions and back bends my breathing has improved a lot, giving me that necessary time to make adjustments. Sitting, again the containment of mind activity and focus on practice, present, prana to apana, apana to prana (passage of energy) has more clarity. I’m also beginning to make that mental connection to agni, (internal fire) not with all the postures in my present practice, but with most of them.

Dhyanam, the first stage of meditation, to train the mind to focus and to begin the journey of containing the senses and connecting internally. My teacher advised me to find a symbol that represents what I consider to be higher than myself, and to continuously bring thoughts and thinking back to that symbol. Well, I have and I’m doing and I’m now beginning to grasp what dhyanam is about and why we need to learn about this and spend time with this, before we can even consider Dhyāna and then into Samādhi. I have a long way to go but I’ve made that link to what is higher than myself and I’m not seeking that externally. I’m linking to Consciousness (purusa, atman) and it’s absolute and integration with Cosmic Consciousness (Isvara, Brahman).

“Your mind is a product of your food, memory is linked to food.My stability, my confidence is linked to food.All these facts are mentioned in the texts.For these reasons I said that food is very important and becomes me.Not just the muscles, but the whole me, the whole personality.”– TKV Desikachar from an interview in the Journal Viniyoga Italia on Yoga and Well Being.

I cycle, a lot and when I’ve done a good day on the bike more often than not, in the night, I’ll be woken up in pain from my adductors cramping. I’ve checked out possible causes and from what I’ve learnt so far, non of what implies muscle cramp applies to me. So stumbling on the above article was good timing.

Had some amazing good news today. After 15 years of having to take 200mg of thyroxine per day, for hypothyroidism – the dosage going down slowly over the past year is now finally down to 100mg per day. Although I went vegan quite a few years ago, it was 3 years ago I went majority plant based, taking out as much processed foods as I could, with exception of dairy milk alternatives, vegan cheeses and the odd cake. I am so happy with the result I need to shout about it as loud as possible.